** FILE ** EBay president and chief executive officer Meg Whitman poses outside of eBay headquarters in San Jose, Calif., Monday, May 21, 2001. Whitman was named Most Powerful Businesswoman by Fortune Magazine surpassing Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard CO. who has held the title every year since it began in 1998. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) Ran on: 10-05-2004
Meg Whitman, president and chief executive officer of EBay, has been named most powerful woman in business by Fortune magazine, displacing HP's Carly Fiorina. DIGITAL IMAGE 2001 PHOTO

Photo: PAUL SAKUMA

** FILE ** EBay president and chief executive officer Meg Whitman...

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** FOR RELEASE ANYTIME ** Intuit chief executive Steve Bennett at company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Wednesday, July 31, 2002. While most of the high-tech industry hunkers down, financial software maker Intuit Corp. is muscling up. In the past year, the company behind popular software including TurboTax, Quicken and QuickBooks has expanded its product line, spent $490 million on six acquisitions and built one of the industry's most successful online subscription services. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) CAT

Steve Jobs has long been one of the wealthiest executives in the Bay Area. Last year, he became even richer.

In 2003, Apple Computer paid the company co-founder and chief executive officer nearly $75 million, more than any other Bay Area executive, according to a study of 400 local, publicly traded companies performed by Equilar, a San Mateo company that tracks executive compensation.

While Jobs received only $1 in salary in 2003, he traded in nearly all of his stock options (many of which were under water) for close to $74.8 million in restricted stock.

That's enough money to buy iMacs for all 52,000 residents in Cupertino, where Apple is based, and still have enough money to buy every youth an iPod, excluding tax and shipping.

The figures include salaries, bonuses, restricted stock, stock options and other compensation. Equilar estimated the value of the stock option packages based on Black-Scholes, a complicated formula that includes the stock price, stock volatility and term of the option. But the actual value could be different from the estimate, based on how much the stock actually appreciates. To avoid double counting, the figures do not include money executives reaped from exercising options received in prior years.

Equilar assembled the list of top-paid executives based on documents 400 area companies filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission through July. The report generally excluded some smaller firms and privately held companies, which don't file reports with the SEC. But the study also excluded at least one major, local public company, Wells Fargo, because the San Francisco bank used a Minnesota telephone number in its filing, said Equilar President Tim Ranzetta. Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich earned roughly $33.6 million in 2003 (including a $24.6 million estimate for the value of his stock options), which would place him fourth on the list of local executives.

Most of the top 100 best-paid executives in the Bay Area were CEOs, but 46 had other titles. Nine were chief financial officers, seven were chief operating officers and four were chairmen. The rest were mostly vice presidents.

"Most people look at just CEO pay," said Brent Longnecker, a Houston consultant specializing in executive compensation and corporate governance. "But the fact of the matter is ... when you've got some really good executives who are too good to let go, you'll pay them really well."

Some executives were paid better than others, whether because their companies are particularly large, enjoyed a particularly good year or simply have a culture of rewarding top executives. EBay and Genentech each had five of the top paid executives on the top 100 list. Gilead Sciences, Oracle, PeopleSoft and Veritas Software each had four.

But some well-known executives didn't make the cut. Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, one of the world's wealthiest men, didn't receive any cash or stock last year. The company said he received only personal use of a car and airplane worth $59,165.

In a filing with the SEC, Oracle explained that it did not pay Ellison a salary or bonus to "more closely align his compensation with the performance of our common stock." Ellison owns 26 percent of the firm's stock, accounting for much of his personal wealth. And Oracle has periodically given him options to buy additional shares.

It's still too early to say who was the best-paid executive in 2004, because most companies won't report the information until next year. But early data suggest the list will change significantly.

Jobs, the best-paid executive in 2003, received only $1 in 2004, according to the company's annual report to the SEC. An Apple spokesman declined to comment on Jobs' pay.

Ellison, meanwhile, will climb a number of notches on the list. After receiving nothing in 2003, Ellison received $3.9 million in salary and bonuses in 2004. He also received an option to purchase 900,000 shares of stock. Oracle estimated the options could be worth $7 .1 million if they appreciate at 5 percent per year during the next decade.

But that still wouldn't be enough to crack the top 25 on the 2003 list, underscoring the immense compensation packages that some Bay Area executives earned.

Executive pay appears particularly generous, compared with the salaries of most rank-and-file workers.

On average, CEOs at publicly traded companies receive about 500 times the pay of the average worker, said David Lewin, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, who has studied pay issues for a quarter of a century. That's five to 10 times the gap that existed 35 years ago.

"The pay of the upper echelon has risen significantly," he said.

Some companies argue they need to pay lavish salaries to attract and keep top talent. Critics contend the pay packages merely reflect executives' clout and ability to persuade directors to give them whatever they want.

Lewin said both arguments have some merit. But, either way, there doesn't seem to be any indication that eight-figure pay packages are going away.